Trump’s Idea of a Middle East Nuclear Deal

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Feb. 20, 2019

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CreditCreditDaniel Zender

An interim report from the House Oversight Committee paints a familiar picture of Trump associates skirting the law to curry favor with people who can make them richer. This time, the dealing doesn’t involve Russians but Saudis, and it is not about a lavish tower in Moscow but the sale of nuclear power reactors.

Negotiations were conducted by people who would stand to gain millions, in apparent disregard of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which sets out explicit procedures and criteria for nuclear cooperation agreements and is intended to thwart proliferation of atomic weapons. Their conflicts of interest “could implicate federal criminal statutes,” according to the report.

By ramming through the sale of as much as $80 billion in nuclear power plants, the Trump administration would provide sensitive know-how and materials to a government whose de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has suggested that he may eventually want a nuclear weapon as a hedge against Iran and has shown little concern for what the rest of the world thinks.

The report also warned, “Within the United States, strong private commercial interests have been pressing aggressively for the transfer of highly sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia — a potential risk to U.S. national security absent adequate safeguards.”

It has been known for some time that the administration has been discussing a nuclear cooperation deal with Saudi Arabia. But it took Democratic control of the House, and the committee, to shine a light on these dark dealings in the report, which draws on claims by multiple whistle-blowers and documents.

The Saudis began dangling visions of billion-dollar deals soon after President Trump was elected. In January 2017, IP3 International, a private company that has assembled a consortium of American companies to build nuclear plants in Saudi Arabia, wrote Prince Mohammed, proposing a “Marshall Plan for the Middle East.”

At the center were Michael Flynn, an adviser to IP3 who continued to push for the nuclear plan after becoming Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, and Thomas Barrack, the president’s billionaire investor friend who last week defended Saudi Arabia’s record of human rights abuses, saying the United States has committed “equal or worse” atrocities.

Mr. Flynn is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his talks with the Russian ambassador about sanctions relief and his work for the Turkish government. Mr. Barrack was chairman of the president’s inaugural committee, which is now under investigation.

Mr. Barrack told ProPublica in 2017, while these negotiations were going on, that he was considering investing in Westinghouse, the bankrupt maker of nuclear reactors. The company was later acquired by a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management, around the time that firm bailed out the family of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and Middle East policy adviser, from a bad investment in a Manhattan office tower.

IP3 officials sent documents to Mr. Flynn for Mr. Trump to approve, before and after the inauguration, despite warnings by career and political staff members that the White House was ignoring laws requiring the president to keep lawmakers abreast of negotiations on nuclear cooperation agreements and submit the agreements to Congress for review and approval, according to the report.

Early in 2017, legal advisers for the National Security Council agreed that Mr. Flynn had a potential conflict of interest. But despite at least two warnings — by the legal advisers and by H.R. McMaster, Mr. Flynn’s successor as national security adviser — that the N.S.C. staff stop work on the plan, the White House has continued to pursue it with Mr. Barrack as the designated point man. Mr. Trump reportedly met with nuclear power developers as recently as Feb. 12.

The United States has long been a leader in nuclear technology, the sale of which is governed by bilateral pacts, called “123 agreements,” which require adherence to nine nonproliferation criteria. Some 21 countries, the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency have these agreements.

The criteria include guarantees that none of the nuclear materials provided by the United States will be used for explosives, that none of the technology or classified data will be transferred to third parties without American consent, and that the other country involved in the agreement will not enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium, which could be a pathway to a nuclear bomb.

The requirements are intended to prevent another country from gaining nuclear weapons. The Saudis say they want the technology only to produce nuclear power for domestic purposes and thus prolong their oil reserves, not to acquire a weapons capability.

But it’s hard to trust such assurances, given Saudi animosity toward Iran and Prince Mohammed’s 2018 comment, “Without a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.”

Although Iran never produced a nuclear weapon, it had a robust nuclear program until it agreed to an international deal in 2015 that curbed its activities. The deal, opposed by the Saudis, is now hanging by a thread because Mr. Trump abrogated America’s commitment.

Efforts by the Obama administration to negotiate a nuclear cooperation agreement faltered over the Saudis’ refusal to make a legally binding commitment to forgo uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing. It’s no surprise that the Saudis would prefer to negotiate over nuclear technology with Mr. Trump, who seems to care far more about profits than about halting the spread of nuclear weapons.

Congressional disaffection with Saudi Arabia was already rising over the Yemen war and the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The House Oversight Committee’s investigation is a stark warning that there is even greater reason for concern and for congressional efforts to put stricter controls in place.